The present invention relates to a device for damping vibrations with an energy recovery capability including an input shaft which can be rotated about the input shaft's longitudinal axis with an alternating rotational direction by a component that vibrates relative to the device, wherein on the input side a freewheel device is connected to the input shaft and on the output side at least indirectly to a generator, which generator is capable of converting the kinetic rotational energy into electric energy and transferring the electric energy to an energy storage element, and a vehicle with such a device.
In vehicle construction such devices for damping vibrations are for example installed parallel to spring devices to avoid rocking and vibrating of the vehicle superstructure in response to corresponding excitation resulting from road irregularities or certain driving situations and to quickly dampen vibrations of a wheel or axle induced by the road surface. Devices for damping vibrations (colloquially referred to as “dampers”) available on the market to date, absorb the energy of the road impulses, thereby heating up. Thus with the goal of improving overall energy efficiency in view, devices for damping vibrations with energy recovery capability have recently become the focus of development.
The generic DE 10 2011 054 854 A1 discloses an energy recovery device for a suspension system of a vehicle, including a suspension connecting arm, which connects a wheel carrier with a lower frame to enable the wheel carrier to move upwards or downwards depending on road conditions, a rotational direction converter which is arranged between a vehicle body side connecting section of the suspension connecting arm and a vehicle body, and which converts a two-directional movement of the body side connecting section corresponding to the up- and downwards movement of the suspension connecting arm to a one-directional movement, a generator which is rotated by means of a torque outputted by the rotational direction converter to generate electrical energy, a rectifier which is connected to the generator to rectify the generated electrical energy, and a battery which is connected to the rectifier in order to charge the battery with the electrical energy. The rotational direction converter is preferably designed as one-way clutch, wherein the one-way clutch is arranged such as to actuate the generator either when the connecting suspension arm is moved downwards or upwards.
Disadvantageously, as a result of using the one-way clutch, the described energy recovery device only transmits one of the two movement directions to the generator (either the upwards or the downwards movement), while the other movement direction is freewheeling. Consequently, approximately only half of the kinetic potential is used for energy recovery.